The door slammed.

It was a miserable cell, composed of rough stones, lately put together, oozing with the moisture from the damp soil around, for the river was close by and the dungeon beneath its level.

“Art thou prepared to meet thy fitting end?”

“What crime have I committed to deserve death?”

“Thou hast knowingly and wilfully abetted, not one but many poisoners, and the stake is the fitting doom for thee and them.”

“Oh! not the stake, God of Abraham.  If ye must slay, at least spare the agonising flames; but what mercy can we hope for, we faithful children of Abraham, from Nazarenes?”

“What price art thou willing to pay for thy forfeit life, if thy sentence is commuted to exile from this land?”

“Price?  Canst thou mean it?  I will fill thy chambers with gold.”

“I seek it not—­albeit,” added the worthy bishop, “some were fitly bestowed on the poor—­but that thou, whose former crime hast brought a worthy youth to the block, shouldst undo the mischief as far as thou art able.”

“But what can I do? who would heed me?”

“Dost thou not know of a drug, which shall throw the drinker thereof into a trance, so like death that all shall believe him dead?”

“I do indeed.”

“And art thou sure of thy power to revive the sleeper from this seeming death, after the lapse of days—­after men have committed him as a corpse to the tomb?”

“I can do so with facility if I have the necessary drugs; but I am stripped of all.  Were I in London—­”

“Hast thou no brethren in Oxenford?”

“Yea, verily, I remember Zacharias the Jew, who lives hard by the river, in the parish of St. Ebba.”

“Canst thou trust him with thy life?”

“He is a brother.”

“Ye are better brothers than many Christians.  I will send him to thee, and he shall supply thee with the necessary medicaments.  If the experiment succeed, and absolute secrecy be observed, I will cause thy sentence to be commuted to banishment, with the forfeiture of some portion of thine ill-gotten goods; otherwise there remaineth but the stake.”

And Geoffrey of Coutances departed.

An hour later, Zacharias of St. Ebba’s parish entered; the two conferred a long time—­Zacharias departed—­returned again—­and in the evening of the following day sought the bishop and placed a packet in his hand.

It was the last night on which poor Wilfred was allowed by Norman mercy to live.  The archbishop was with him.

He was penitent and resigned; his last confession was made, and it was arranged that on the morrow he should receive the Holy Communion at St. George’s Chapel, within the precincts, from the hands of Lanfranc, ere led forth to die, as now ordered, upon that mound the visitor to Oxford still beholds, hard by that same donjon tower.

“I thank thee, father,” he said to Lanfranc—­“I thank thee for the hope thou hast given me of meeting those I have lost, in a better and brighter world.”